I personally don't have a problem with public hospitals supplementing the public PROVIDED it's not at the expense of the public systems through loss of staff to private clinics/hospitals and the money for the contracted procedures is the same budgeted amount whether it's performed publicly or privately if it means that waiting lists come down. Especially considering that a number of richer people will already have health insurance meaning that, for a lot of elective surgeries in the public system, it's those without it who are forced to suffer longer sitting on a public waiting list.
Health NZ told to give private hospitals 10-year outsourcing contracts
Hospital outsourcing contracts have tended to be short-term, but Health Minister Simeon Brown has made a new request.www.rnz.co.nz
From personal experience. Because we had medical insurance (provided through my wife's work), S was about to have her cancer surgery and start chemo ASAP after she was diagnosed. A few months earlier, a friend of ours was diagnosed with a less aggressive form of breast cancer but she had to go through the public system. Because of delays seeing an oncologist and then with the surgery, it became far more aggressive and unfortunately she passed away within six months of finishing her chemo. The oncologist told her husband that she would have had a far better chance of surviving if he had seen her earlier.
During Helen Clark's time as PM, my mother had both her cataract operations done privately but funded by the public system. The change in her was dramatic as she used to be a piano teacher and wasn't able to play for a few years because of not being able to see the music. That led to depression and drugs to overcome that. The change, after the second eye was operated on, was almost immediate and she was soon off the antidepressants.
It's a pity if we decided not to allow most people to be given the healthcare, either publicly or privately, they need faster because of political ideologies about spreading the health load in both public and private facilities.
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